Detectives: Mom didn't stop boyfriend from abusing kids

Months of torture are over for two Port Charlotte kids. Detectives say their mother's boyfriend beat them almost every day and she didn't do anything to stop it.

Now, they're both in jail.

Doctors say the legs and backsides of the two children living at a Port Charlotte home were swollen and covered in bruises - obvious signs they'd been hit with a belt over and over.

"That's a shame. My heart goes out to any kids who are abused," says Pauline Smith, a neighbor.

She sees the boy and a girl walk to the bus stop some mornings.

"At times I thought the son was a little depressed; I thought maybe it was because his parents had split," she admits.

Detectives say the abuse came at the hands their mom's boyfriend - 37-year-old Manuel Antuna.

Both children told detectives Antuna made them hold cans of food with their arms outstretched like a cross and their face against the wall for hours. They say they're mother didn't do anything to protect them.

Allowing it is what landed Linda Capps in jail. Authorities say she didn't do anything to stop Antuna, now she's facing the same charges as him.

The sheriff's office says parents have a legal obligation to protect their children.

"I would have fought anything or anybody for my children," notes Smith, a mother of six.

While it doesn't happen in every case, officials say it's not rare for someone to be charged with a crime when they didn't do anything to stop abuse.

"It's always been a combination of different factors and it also seems to depend on the investigator themselves and what they see," explains Raelyn Means, the director of the Guardian ad Litem program.